By Charissa Howard
“Blacks [do] everything. Everything,” Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, declared in awe.
And it was true. From the moment Robinson and SNCC leaders stepped onto the plane to Guinea, funded by singer Harry Belafonte, and they marveled; it was flown by Black pilots, served by Black flight attendants, and filled with Black passengers. When the exhausted SNCC members arrived, they were feted by leaders of a newly independent Black nation.
It was the end of the summer of 1964. They registered Black voters in one of the most dangerous racist areas of America. They had trained hundreds of frightened volunteers. Many of them had been beaten and jailed. Families’ homes had been bombed and burned. Three of their friends, James Earl Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, had been abducted and murdered.
Through it all, voters had been registered, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, open to all regardless of race, had made a brave and hard-won challenge at the August Democratic National Convention. No, they hadn’t been seated. But the Voting Rights Act that would be passed the next year would not have been passed without their dogged persistence.
But at the end of the harrowing summer of 1964, SNCC leaders didn’t know what to do next. . The campaign that they had spent months planning for had officially concluded. And, to be honest, they were burnt out. That’s when famous actor and singer Harry Belafonte came to the young leaders with a proposal: they needed rest. He would pay for eleven members of the group to come with him to visit the newly-formed and newly-freed African nation of Guinea for three weeks in September. There, the Americans could meet and exchange anecdotes and ideas with the Guineans, who were abolitionists and fighters for justice, too, having gained independence from the French just six years before. . Just as importantly, Belafonte hoped that the trip would give the activists a few weeks to rejuvenate after their long summer.
After that first flight, everyone that SNCC encountered in Africa, from the government leaders to the CEOs to the bus drivers, was Black. SNCC organizers had only been trying to register Black people, 40% of Mississippians, to vote. The idea of a Black president had been almost unimaginable to them. This helped the leaders to envision Black Americans at the helm: of the government, businesses, and transportation.
The trip was also a rest from the work of fighting against injustice,and of enduring white violence and oppression. The time and the perspective helped to renew hope in the young leaders. “We’re beginning to expand our horizon,” declared Cleveland Sellers, another SNCC leader on the trip, “beginning to talk about similarities between the struggle for independence in Africa and the struggle for the right to vote in Mississippi.”
Belafonte’s vision for an exchange of ideas between Guinea and America’s top young Black leaders was indeed successful.
It is the hope of VoteThatJawn that the SNCC trip to Guinea can serve as a lesson to us now.
While we urge all of you to fight the good fight, especially when it comes to voting, we also want you to check in with yourselves. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you are struggling. And if someone offers you help, like Harry Belafonte did to the SNCC leaders, don’t be afraid to take it!
While Freedom Summer was revolutionary for the nation, the time for rest and fellowship t afterwards was vitally important, too. Rest, recharge, re-envision. Then – with hope and spirits renewed – keep on fighting.
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Charissa Howard is a student at the University of Pennsylvania studying English and Political Science. She hails from the Philly suburbs and enjoys singing with The Inspiration, her Black a cappella group.
ABOUT Committee of Seventy
The Committee of Seventy is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has promoted, supported, and facilitated government ethics and election integrity for more than a century. We believe that elections should be more free, more fair, more safe and more secure. We want every eligible voter to vote, to be informed when they vote, and to vote with confidence.
For more information, visit www.seventy.org
ABOUT Vote That Jawn
Using the power of youth voice and connection, #VoteThatJawn aims to bring 18-year-olds and other first-time voters to the polls—beginning a process toward full civic engagement—not just for a charismatic candidate, but to advocate for youth safety, agency, and inclusion.
For more information, visit www.votethatjawn.com
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